The continuous expansion of the Internet, along with the expansion and sophistication of computing networks and systems, has led to the proliferation of content being stored and accessible over the Internet. This, in turn, has driven the need for large and sophisticated data storage systems. As the demand for data storage continues to increase, larger and more sophisticated storage systems are being designed and deployed. Many large-scale data storage systems utilize storage appliances that include arrays of physical storage media. These storage appliances are capable of storing incredible amounts of data. For example, at this time, Oracle's SUN ZFS Storage ZS5-4 appliance can store up to 6.9 petabytes of data. Moreover, multiple storage appliances may be networked together to form a storage pool, which can further increase the volume of stored data.
Typically, large storage systems such as these may include a file system for storing and accessing files. In addition to storing system files (operating system files, device driver files, etc.), the file system provides storage and access of user data files. If any of these files (system files and/or user files) contain critical data, then it becomes advantageous to employ a backup storage scheme to ensure that critical data is not lost if a file storage device fails.
Conventional cloud-based storage is object-based and offers elasticity and scale. However, cloud object storage presents a number of problems. Cloud object storage offers interfaces that are based on getting and putting whole objects. Cloud object storage provides a limited ability to search, and typically has high latency. The limited cloud-based interfaces do not align with needs of local file system applications. Converting legacy applications to use an object interface would be expensive and may not be practical or even possible. Cloud object storage encryption keeps encryption keys making data more vulnerable and less secure.
Thus, there is a need for systems and methods that address the foregoing problems in order to provide layering of file system functionality on an object interface. This and other needs are addressed by the present disclosure.